


On The Road Home

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Drama, Fourth Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 12:00:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3767368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the road home from the Grey Havens, Sam remembers Frodo, and finds comfort with Merry and Pippin.</p><p>(The characters are Meriadoc Brandybuck, Samwise Gamgee, and Peregrin Took. The selection form is not working for me.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	On The Road Home

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

_"A day will come at last when I_  
Shall take the hidden paths that run  
West of the Moon, East of the Sun" 

The light of the Star-glass fades away, taking, it seems, all the light of the world with it. Sam stands on the quay, the sea grey before him and the sky dark above him and his heart numb with grief; Merry stands at his left hand, Pippin at his right, and they silently watch with him, watch the sea and the sky and Sam's world ending.

Except that it cannot end, not for Sam. He has too much to do.

How can he do any of it? How can he move from this moment, from his last sight of Frodo? The very thought a cold sword through him, he sways on his feet; Merry lays a hand on his shoulder, and Pippin tucks a hand round his arm, and they stand silent, looking out into the grey as it fades to darkness.

 

*

Sam comes to himself with Bill's reins in his hands, Bill plodding steadily along beneath him; Merry and Pippin must have gotten him mounted and set them all on the road home. The woods are blue and violet around him, deep twilight, distant glimmerings like stars at the edges of his vision. His companions ride ahead, Merry leading Frodo's pony Strider, the dim light glinting off their hair and turning the silver tree on Pippin's Gondorian finery to shining lapis.

The woods are beautiful, Sam thinks, and abruptly bursts into tears. Bands of pain wind round his chest, the sobs threaten to shake him apart, and he sags over Bill's neck, weeping like a bereft child. The beauty all around him sinks away, blotted out as Sam presses his hands to his face, struggling and failing to control his grief. What is beauty now, without the shining lady Galadriel, without Gandalf whom he'd known all his life, without Elves in the woods and under the stars? What is beauty without Frodo beside him seeing it and speaking of it and intensifying it by reflecting it in his eyes?

Seemingly from leagues away, Sam hears Merry and Pippin halt. He tries to call to them to go on, but the words crumple to sobs; he tries to wave them on, but his hands refuse to detach from his face. Curled in on himself, so tightly his brow brushes Bill's neck, Sam tries to steel himself against their inescapable cheer, knowing it will feel like salt and acid on his flayed heart---

\---but they're silent as they reach him, and keep silence. Merry folds his hands over Sam's, gently prying the reins away; Pippin lays a hand on Sam's shoulder, then dismounts and half-helps, half-lifts Sam from the saddle. Something within him flares in protest at Master Pippin doing for him, but Sam can't raise a hand to push Pippin's away; all he can manage is helpless weeping into fine silver embroidery as Pippin guides him, stumbling and tear-blinded, to sit beside a beech-tree. Sam lays a hand on the smooth bark, taking some small comfort from the strength of the tree; Pippin leans forward and loosely drapes his arms around Sam and quietly lets him weep.

When the world returns from behind the rain-curtain of grief, Sam finds a handkerchief in his fist; feeling a fool, he dries his face and looks up to thank Pippin, but the words stick in his mouth when Pippin gives him a smile of heartrending sweetness and lightly taps his nose with one finger.

Sam sniffles again, and smells woodsmoke. Merry has built a fire and set a kettle in the coals, and before Sam can bestir his heavy limbs Pippin has the bedrolls out, one atop the other, and tea made and supper sorted. Pippin returns to Sam, bringing a mug of tea and a bowl of trail-supper; Sam opens his mouth and tries to rise, to protest, but Pippin gives him that same achingly sweet smile and kisses him, warm and soft and right between the eyes. Sam sits down heavily as if knocked down by the kiss, and Pippin's face swims in his sight as he looks up, feeling the tears prickling.

Pippin sees it, too, and catches Sam in his arms again; even as Sam weeps onto velvet he feels Pippin's shoulders shaking, Pippin's tears falling into his hair.

*

Sam wakes to midnight, stars glinting white through the leaves above him, Merry's back tucked to his, and a sharp nose poking his shoulder; for a moment of flaring hope, Sam thinks he knows the feel of that nose, but then Frodo's pointy nose had been a Tookish legacy, just as Pippin's is. Collapsed hope leaves hollowness behind, and a sob rises in Sam's throat; he clamps his lips tightly together to stifle it and nearly succeeds.

Nearly. Merry stirs, and Sam silently calls himself a hundred names as Merry rolls; then the hundred-and-first is shocked clean out of his head when Merry presses a kiss to his ear. Sam catches his breath, and memories flicker, of his dreams in the nights after his mother's passing, of Frodo's boundless appetite for kisses after Bilbo's departure, of a four-way hobbit embrace in Lorien. Sam hears Merry's breath behind him, so shallow as to be nearly stilled, and lets go a sigh, and Merry sighs too, warm over his ear, then kisses him again, lower now, towards his throat.

Sam recalls Frodo's lips there, Frodo's arm laid over his waist where Merry's is gently tightening, and even as Sam shifts towards Merry the tears burst forth. Merry leans over him, laying gentle kisses over Sam's closed eyelids, and all Sam can do is clench his hand in the back of Merry's shirt and struggle to keep his arm round Pippin still, struggle not to sob aloud as tears run from his closed eyes and Merry kisses them away.

Then the sharp nose twitches against Sam's shoulder, and Pippin's hand slides up his belly as Pippin yawns hot dampness against Sam's throat, then lays a warm kiss there.

Of all the things to do on such a night, and yet Sam's blood stirs to heat even as his heart thuds in the cavern of his chest. Merry and Pippin stroke his clothes open and kiss him gently, soft presses of lips on his eyelids and cheeks, ears and mouth. Tucking his face to a smooth shoulder, trembling with mingled arousal and tears, Sam surrenders himself to them as he has done since the ship embarked, and slowly, with every stroke and kiss, the great ragged hollow within Sam isn't filled, but it is soothed, the ache eased a little by the balm of their care.

Hands moving ceaselessly, kisses gently deepening, Merry and Pippin move almost in unison, the only sounds the fire's gentle crackle and three sets of breathing that sound like two. Merry cradles Sam's face in his hand, pillowing his head with the other arm, and kisses him slowly, open-mouthed; at first Sam's mouth hardly feels a part of him, his skin feels distant and dull under Pippin's hands, but little by little his skin warms and tingles, his body catches the heat they're carefully kindling, his sobs turn from grief to wordless pleading as they break against Merry's lips.

When it takes him, the peak hardly feels like pleasure so much as simply overwhelming, his whole body pulsing around him; even so, with four hands on him and two sets of lips on his face Sam feels for a moment not quite so alone, and the tears that slip from his closed eyes aren't bitter with grief. Merry and Pippin kiss those tears away, and do his clothes back up and hold him close between them, and as the reverberations die down Sam sinks into a blank dreamless sleep.

 

*

Sam wakes in full daylight, his eyelids and indeed his whole body leaden. He is alone in the bedroll; someone is clanking about with the kettle, someone else murmuring to the ponies. He sits up, his eyes gummy and his mouth dry, and Merry, dressed plainly and drinking a mug of tea, catches sight of the movement and pours one for Sam, giving him a smile as well. Sam nods his thanks, though his head aches with the rest of him, and he swears to himself that he will be of use for the rest of the trip.

Soon enough they set out, leading the ponies; Merry and Pippin hold out hands to Sam, who smiles and shakes his head, then take each other's hands as they walk up the path, and Sam follows them, leading Strider as well as Bill. The woods are sunny, golden and green and warm for the start of October, and Sam lets their beauty pour through him, into his eyes and through the cavern of his heart. His skin prickles and tingles as if new, and he wonders if he should feel guilty for the night before, if he should miss his lovely Rosie, if he should grieve so at the promise of Frodo's healing. The questions echo distantly; the woods shimmer around him, and Sam realizes his eyes are wet with tears again.

He dashes them away with the back of his hand. He has no cause to be weeping, not when Frodo wished him to be happy. And yet, the thought of Frodo, his gentle dry-eyed look, his hands on Sam's shoulders and his dry soft farewell kiss, does not help Sam stanch the tears. He thinks of the Elves, of their songs to the golden greenness of the autumn woods, of the Lady's shining face and hair, but he sees that shining hair fading into the distance, shrinking as the ship shrinks into the immensity of the sea, and his shoulders begin to shake. Everything high and fine seems gone from the world, forever again out of reach.

Then Sam thinks of shining silver-gilt hair, all in a thatch on his smiling baby daughter's head, and for the first time since Frodo said, "the Ring-bearers should go together," Sam feels his face stretch into a smile.

Merry and Pippin turn to look at him, then, and smile to see him smiling, and Sam feels a little flicker of something that isn't pain.

*

Sam makes supper that night, as Pippin sees to the ponies. Having a task to do is always a comfort to Sam; Frodo knew that, which is why he set him such tasks, left a whole life to him. Sam bows his head at the thought, and a tear falls from his nose into the soup, but though the grief beats at him it doesn't take him, and though he sniffles he can keep stirring.

Which is all to the best, since Merry has steadily grown paler and more drawn all day, and taken to rubbing his right arm as if it pains him, which it well might. Sam has seen a maze of fine scars like crackle-lines going up that arm. Pippin casts a worried glance after Merry, but says nothing, instead stepping into the woods; who ever thought that young chatterbox would learn to hold his tongue? But then who seeing him would think he were still a tween?

As if called by Sam's thoughts Pippin reappears, holding a bulging handkerchief and some long twigs. Pippin has found some mushrooms, cepes and wood's-hen, which he spits on the sticks and props at the edge of the fire to roast, sharing a smile with Sam as he works. Then he goes to Merry, who sits silently at the base of an alder, arms round his knees, looking up at the darkening sky. Pippin sits beside him, and though Merry doesn't look at him a certain softening of his body plainly says he knows Pippin is there. Sam watches them both, and dishes up mugfuls of soup.

As they eat, the fire crackles; an owl hoots, but the otherwise the only sound is the gentle whisper of the woods, a soothing rustle. These trees seem well-disposed to three grieving hobbits, Sam thinks gratefully. Perhaps they remember the Elves' songs between them, on the journey to the Havens. Sam watches the orange-red fire and sees the Elves' cool shimmering radiance surrounding the hobbits in their midst, shining off Bilbo's white hair and weary face, glowing through Frodo as if he were alabaster. Sam lay of nights, curled round Frodo as if to hold him forever, feeling that light on his eyelids as Frodo's open eyes studied and shone upon him.

When Sam hears a sob he thinks it's his own for a moment, then realizes it's Merry's. What must his grief be, in this moment, the cousin he knew all his life now departed when none of them could follow? Sam turns to Merry, who is biting his lip and staring into the flames, Pippin's face tucked to his neck. He raises a hand to gently brush it backwards across Merry's cheek, smudging away the teartracks, and Merry's mouth curves into an unsteady smile for just a moment before his whole face crumples and he sags sideways. Sam catches him, and Merry weeps into his shoulder just as he had into Merry's the previous night.

*

Sam eventually disentangles himself from the knot of clinging hobbits; it helps that Merry, still sobbing, is clutching Pippin and kissing him with what must be bruising force. Sam blushes a little to recall how pleasure does help, at least for a little while; he listens to the soft music of kisses and moans, sobs and gasps, as he clears up the supper dishes and banks the fire. He knows them too well by now to be flustered, and at a particularly keen cry he even smiles.

Before things can become _too_ involved, Sam drags the bedroll over and gently shakes Pippin's shoulder. Merry tucks his face into Pippin's chest, and Pippin grins up at Sam, looking not a day older than his age; he catches Sam's wrist, and even if Sam had wished to refuse, he couldn't have.

So, this time, Merry is in the middle, trembling and weeping, and Pippin directs Sam's hands as he tucks all three of them together. Sam kisses away Merry's tears as Merry had done for him; Merry kisses hard, biting Sam's lip till it throbs, sucking on his tongue, and Sam lets him, hoping the pleasure Merry can wring from him and Pippin will salve what it needs to. Legs wound round both of them, Pippin grips Merry's hips with strong sword-calloused hands, easing Merry's frantic thrusts as he chases oblivion; when he peaks, Merry groans as if in pain, and slumps, and falls to sleep as if drugged.

Sam lets go a shaky sigh, and strokes Merry's crisp curls, watching his brow smooth. Pippin's eye gleams over Merry's shoulder, and he reaches a hand to stroke Sam's hair, and Sam kisses his wrist before gently placing that hand on Merry's hair and turning over, tucking his back against Merry's as he finds his own sleep.

*

It is with a shock of relief that Sam realizes he misses his wife.

He has hardly thought of Rosie all this trip; before Frodo left, well, Frodo was leaving, Sam's whole world was filled with that knowledge, with the need to store up as much of the sight and sound and feel of Frodo as he could, and edged with the departing beauty of the Elves around them and Bilbo drowsing beside them and Gandalf with them as Sam had never seen him, something beyond human. Looking at Gandalf in such guise, Sam finally understood how he returned from his fall in Moria.

All those thoughts twined round the edges of Sam's mind as he spent his last days with Frodo. Since the ship sailed, Sam had been afraid to think of Rosie, afraid he would find he resents her and Elanor for binding him to the Shire, keeping him from going away with Frodo. He loves Rosie, he had loved her all their lives together, and is glad to be wed to her, but if he weren't married, Frodo might not have finally gone where Sam could not follow.

But now, he thinks of her smile and her curls falling over his hands, and he misses them, and is glad of the want. He doesn't want to have left her. This must be what Frodo meant by his not always being torn in two, he thinks, and lays a hand on the muscles and hide of Bill's neck as he lets himself weep. These tears do not wrench him or crumple him up; they flow forth almost easily, and leave behind something rather like peace.

A soft scrap of cloth brushes Sam's wrist; he turns his head and finds Merry smiling and red-eyed, holding out a handkerchief. Sam smiles back, and squeezes Merry's hand as he accepts it. Tucked behind Merry, eyes closed, Pippin has his cheek pressed to Merry's back; Stybba is a large and sturdy pony, and that morning Merry would hardly let go of Pippin. But now, looking at Pippin's wet eyelashes, the red tip of his nose, Sam knows who will be in the middle that night.

*

Somehow Pippin doesn't know.

He tries to build a fire, and when the sticks snap in his hands he laughs shrilly at them. He gets tangled in the tack when unsaddling the ponies, and smiles sheepishly when Sam comes to his rescue. Eventually he stalks off, ostensibly mushroom-hunting, but Sam and Merry glance at each other before Merry follows; when they return Pippin is weeping on Merry's shoulder, his whole body shaking.

Pippin always wants as much as one, or two, or three, can give him, Sam well remembers. They actually manage to get out of their clothes this night, and Pippin makes it quite clear what he wants, winding his legs around Merry's waist, his moaning into Sam's neck taking on a pleading note. Sam thinks that it's a pity they haven't anything to ease the way, and he could almost laugh at himself for thinking it; two wet fingers will have to do, and Sam holds Pippin as Merry works him lovingly with both hands, resting his mouth on Pippin's brow as Pippin writhes between them and screams so that the woods echo round them. In the sobbing near-silence that follows, the forest's rustle sounds almost amused, and Sam is somehow certain that nothing heard Pippin's cry but friendly trees and shimmering stars.

Sam kisses the back of Pippin's neck and carefully starts disentangling himself. He is roused, as he was the night before, and it's worse because he did nothing about it then, but it mostly amuses him. He's quite old enough to know he won't die of it. Merry's hand on his wrist stops him, though; it is still faintly sticky, and Sam thinks of the pile of handkerchiefs they are going through, and actually laughs. Merry laughs, too, just a whisper of one, not that a full shout would wake Pippin now; he leans over Pippin to kiss Sam as he wraps that hand round him, and Sam can't quite reach to reciprocate so he holds Pippin warmly even as Merry strokes him. It's odd, tweenish and wild, his arms round one lad while another pleasures him, but it is a pleasure, and Sam moans into Merry's kiss before he's done. Merry smiles over Sam's mouth, and kisses his cheek and his brow, and Sam's face sinks into Pippin's curls as he sinks into sleep that actually feels welcoming.

*

Sam wakes to warmth and the first greyness of dawn. He rises as early as he's used to, and finds Merry and Pippin beside him wound round each other; he smiles and stretches and wanders over to the stream they've camped by to scrub himself briskly in the chill water. He feels a bit different, and wonders why, until he realizes that he's been smiling since he woke. The light is shading to pink and gold, and Sam thinks how Frodo would love it, if he could be convinced to rise early enough to see it.

_Frodo_.

Sam is never going to share a sunrise with him again, never going to share midnight with him again, never going to see him again. The thought staggers him like a blow; he falls forward, planting his hands on pebbles, chill water flowing round his arms. The morning mood drains from Sam as the warmth of his body sinks away into the streamwater, till his fingers numb. Frodo is gone. It is Torech Ungol all over again.

But, it's not. A little fish nibbles at Sam's arm, tickling. Over at the bedroll, someone shifts and snorts. Up at Bag End, Rosie waits for Sam to return. She will have read the letter Frodo told Sam he left her, and will have wept and dried her tears, and she will smile at Sam when he walks through the round green door; she will put Elanor into his arms, and Elanor will burble at him and fill him with the light of her shining eyes and hair. And the garden is waiting, full of late fruits and herbs to be dried, flowers to be bedded and plans to be made.

And beyond....

...gently, Frodo had said, "your time may come"...

....the sunshine is growing brighter, and something lightens within Sam. He sits back on his heels and presses his chilled hands to his face, takes a deep breath and dries his face with his sleeve. Then he gets to his feet, to fill the kettle and start breakfast before those two finally wake.

*

Sam noticed they were back within the Shire's borders some time ago, but it didn't seem necessary to say anything, as they rode in single file, Strider following Bill following Dapple following Stybba. But now Pippin tilts his head back, tossing his curls in the sunlight, and begins to sing.

" _Roads go ever ever on/Under cloud and under star,  
Yet feet that wandering have gone/Turn at last to home afar.  
Eyes that fire and sword have seen/And horror in the halls of stone  
Look at last on meadows green/And trees and hills they long have known. _ "

"You started on the second verse," Merry says, voice warm, and Sam realizes that these are the first words they've said since they left the Havens. Pippin merely grins at Merry and starts in on the first verse, and so does Merry, and so does Sam.

That song leads to others, to walking-songs and riding-songs and dancing-songs, as they ride on through the opening woods, over green grass and under warm sunlight. Even so, by the time they sing "For though it was day, to Her surprise, they all went back to bed!" Sam has tears rolling down his face, and Merry and Pippin draw rein and wait for him to come up between them; Pippin presses a handkerchief into his hand, and they wait till he sniffles to a stop.

"Well, we're nearly home," Merry says, and Pippin nods. They are on a small hill, looking down into rolling green country; Sam looks ahead at a patchwork of woods and farmland, stitched with fences and dotted with smials. He looks at Merry, sitting Stybba with grace, hair shining in the sunlight, and at Pippin, bright-eyed and sharp-nosed, watching Sam with a wise sweet smile. Frodo's Shire, Frodo's kin; Sam's home, his friends.

Sam returns Pippin's smile, despite his tears, despite everything, or perhaps because of it. "Mr. Merry, Mr. Pippin---" he begins, and they cut him off with identical cries of "Sam!", and then all three of them are laughing, sitting on their ponies in the sunshine.

"Come on, then," says Pippin, nudging Dapple. "I shall be glad to reach home and have a proper smoke. I had to pack in such a hurry, I left my pipe!"

"I'd call you forgetful, but I left mine as well," says Merry, and they smile at each other across Sam; he watches them and thinks of his Rosie. As they ride down the hillslope they begin to sing again, all together.

" _Roads go ever ever on,/Over rock and under tree,/_  
By caves where never sun has shone,/By streams that never find the sea;  
Over snow by winter sown,/And through the merry flowers of June,  
Over grass and over stone,/And under mountains in the moon."


End file.
